08
Jan

271 Years Before Pantone, an Artist Mixed and Described Every Color Imaginable in an 800-Page Book.

In 1692 an artist known only as “A. Boogert” sat down to write a book in Dutch about mixing watercolors. Not only would he begin the book with a bit about the use of color in painting, but would go on to explain how to create certain hues and change the tone by adding one, two, or three parts of water. The premise sounds simple enough, but the final product is almost unfathomable in its detail and scope.

Spanning nearly 800 completely handwritten (and painted) pages, Traité des couleurs servant à la peinture à l’eau, was probably the most comprehensive guide to paint and color of its time. The color book was probably intended as an educational guide. The irony being there was only a single copy that was probably seen by very few eyes.

It’s hard not to compare the hundreds of pages of color to its contemporary equivalent, the Pantone Color Guide, which wouldn’t be published for the first time until 1963.

08
Jan

The Cyanometer Is a 225-year-old tool for measuring the blueness of the sky. It was invented in 1789 by Swiss physicist Horace-Bénédict de Saussure and German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt who used the circular array of 53 shaded sections in experiments above the skies over Geneva, Chamonix and Mont Blanc.

The Cyanometer helped lead to a successful conclusion that the blueness of the sky is a measure of transparency caused by the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere.

11
May

Thomas Lohr is a Bavaria-born fashion, portrait and still-life photographer. His solid portfolio includes fashion’s biggest names, from Dior to Hermès, Lanvin and Kenzo. Despite his frantic work schedule, Lohr still manages to carve out time for personal projects, the latest of which is the lustrous Birds. Printed on Japanese paper and bound in a white, velvety cover, the book invites us to reflect, close up, on the beauty of feathers and plumage, Lohr’s masterfully-lit shots providing an artful and enigmatic study. Here the photographer discusses abstraction and traveling into the unknown.

On his fascination with birds…“Birds are inspiring creatures, but with this project I wanted to abstract things and look closer at something kind of surreal that I see when looking at birds’ feathers in real detail.”

On the inspiration behind the project…“The initial idea behind the book was a study on textures and colors. What I wanted to do was to show the beauty of birds while approaching it from a different point of view.”

Ruffling beautiful feathers with this extraordinary book of photographs.

07
Oct

Otherworldly. As a testimony to the rich cinematic culture of South India, German photographers Sabine Haubitz + Stefanie Zoche documented the vibrantly-colored façades and abstract architectural facets of movie theaters.

They state: “We are particularly interested in the culturally influenced reinterpretation of modern building style apparent in the architectural style which displays an unusual mixture of modernism, local architectural elements, a strong use of colour and, in the case of some older cinema halls, of art deco.”

07
Aug

French photographer Thomas Rousset and graphic designer Raphaël Verona took a trip to Bolivia to encounter a magical world of doctors, spiritual healers and medicine men. They got to know strange rites and rituals, facing some some ancient mythologies.

Rousset and Verona created a book out of the material they’ve collected, emphasizing the tension between old and new, good and evil, spiritual and physical that appears very fascinating. The book ‘Waska Tatay’ is available now from IDPURE.

27
Jun

Divine-looking blue walls…This is what the old town sector (or medina) in Chefchaouen, Morocco, has looked like for quite a few decades. The vivid blue paint covers most of the medina’s walls.

Situated in the Rif mountains, the city of Chefchaouen was found in 1471 and served as a Moorish fortress for exiles from Spain. It is thought that the suggestion to cover most of its walls in blue tekhelel (an ancient natural dye) was introduced by Jewish refugees in 1930, to symbolize the sky and heaven and to be reminded of the power of God.

17
May

As part of the European Month of Photography, Gestalten is pleased to present Nostalgia groundbreaking colour images by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii that document the Russia of Czar Nicholas II. This exhibit is the first to present such a wide selection of the colour photography pioneer’s recently laboriously restored work in Europe. Prokudin-Gorskii developed a method in which he used color-sensitive glass plates decades before the widespread availability of colour film.

The subjects of Prokudin-Gorskii’s range from the medieval churches and monasteries of old Russia to the railroads and factories of an emerging industrial power. He also captured an impressive range of Russia’s heterogeneous population: from day laborers to owners of large estates, from a simple ferryman to an elegant emir, from Jewish families to proud Don Cossacks.

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii
Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii began his journey to capture all of Russia in color images on behalf of the czar in 1909. Since 1905 the color photography pioneer had planned to systematically document the empire with the color photography technique he had developed in order to give all Russians, particularly schoolchildren, a deeper connection to their country. He petitioned Nicholas II long enough that the czar finally provided him with a specially equipped railroad-car darkroom and the necessary travel permits.

After what would become a six-year photographic expedition, Prokudin-Gorskii fled Russia in 1918 in the aftermath of the October Revolution. After traveling through Norway and England, he settled in Paris, where he died in 1944. The United States Library of Congress purchased his work in 1948, but it was only recently laboriously restored. Both the exhibit and book Nostalgia showcase the resulting wider range of masterpieces of early color photography that are a milestone in Russia’s cultural history.